Come this way some say with sweet eyes
opening their arms, and certain
that it would be good if I would listen
when they say: “come this way”!
I look at them with languidly,
(my eyes filled with irony and tiredness)
and I cross my arms,
and I never go that way…
this is my glory:
to create inhumanity!
to accompany no one.
– for I live with the same unwillingness
with which I tore my mother’s womb
no, I won’t go that way! I only go where
my own steps take me…
if to what I seek to know no one can answer
why do you repeat: “come this way”?

I rather crawl thru muddy alleys,
to whirl in the wind,
like rags, to drag my bleeding feet,
than to go that way…
if I came to this world, it was
only to deflower virgin forests,
and to draw my own footsteps in the unexplored sand!
all else I do is worth nothing.

how can you be the ones
that give me impulses, tools and courage
to overcome my own obstacles?
the blood of our ancestors runs thru your veins,
And you love what is easy!
I love the Far and the Mirage,
I love the abysses, the torrents, the deserts…
go! you have roads,
you have gardens, you have flower-beds,
you have a nation, you have roofs,
and you have rules, and treaties, and philosophers, and wise men.
I have my Madness!
I hold it high like a torch burning in the dark night,
and I feel foam, and blood, and chants on my lips…
God and the Devil guide me, no one else!
everyone’s had a father, everyone’s had a mother;
but I, who never begin or end,
was born of the love between God and the Devil.

ah! don’t give me sympathetic intentions!
don’t asks me for definitions!
don’t tell me: “come this way”!
my life is a whirlwind that broke loose,
it’s a wave that rose.
it’s one more atom that ignited…
I don’t know which way I’ll go,
I don’t know where I’m going to,
– I know I’m not going that way!

SHORT BIOGRAPHICAL NOTE:José Maria dos Reis Pereira, better known by the pen name José Régio (Vila do Conde, Portugal,September 17, 1901 — December 22, 1969) was a Portuguese writer which lived most of his life in Portalegre (1928 to 1967). He was the brother of Júlio Maria dos Reis Pereira.

In 1927 he founded the magazine Presença which would come to be cornerstone of the second modernism movement in Portugal, of which he was the main ideologue. Aside from this magazine he also made contributions to newspapers such as the Diário de Notícias and the Comércio do Porto.

He was defiant of the Estado Novo regime and was a member of the Movimento de Unidade Democrática (Democratic Unity Movement), supporting Humberto Delgado’s bid for the Portuguese presidency.

As a writer, José Régio was the author of novels, plays, poetry and essays. His works are hare strongly influenced by the theme of conflict between Man and God and between Individual and Society, in a critical analysis of solitude and human relations. As an essayist, he dedicated himself to the study of Camões and Florbela Espanca.